Why I let her go

I was 25, she was 22. It was her first year out of college with a new job, her first real apartment that her parents didn't pay for, real bills. We met a year earlier at a coffee shop on campus. She talked to me because I was scribbling intently in my moleskin-style notepad.

We hit it off immediately. She read what I was writing and was flummoxed because it was a topic she had never even considered, a book I wanted to write (to this day it is ongoing). I shared a cup of coffee with her, got her phone number, and skedaddled.

We briefly dated over the next few weeks, but her work schedule was harried, and my writing had taken off, making me hard to see. We liked each other, a lot, but timing wasn't right. So we promised to stay in touch, hang out when possible, but not making anything serious.

We fucked a few months later, mostly due to each of us needing our pipes cleaned and a mutual attraction to the other. She was pretty, but she was also pretty green. She had one lover in high school, two in college, plus a lot of drunk blowjobs and clit-lickings shared with horrid frat boys who neither gave nor really received. I wined her, dined her, wooed her, teased her, made her want my body and my hands and my mouth on her. The first night we had sex was uncomfortable, because she didn't want to go back to the college days of hooking up. The sex was good for both, but it was obvious she was nervous. Looking back, I should've waited a few weeks.

Soon, though, the second late-night booty call came across my email, and I hopped over to her pad. She was already relatively naked, wet beyond belief. Foreplay was mostly her throwing herself at my cock, bouncing on it with glee and desire. That night was good sex, maybe great sex. She never came from penetration before, and that night she came twice in 3 hours. So did I.

Our relationship was mostly fucking, but a lot of talking afterwards. She was a true lady in this case, one of the rare ones that doesn't roll over and sleep. Note that I have no problem with someone passing out after good sex, but in her case I loved the talking and touching and admiring of each other's bodies and thoughts for hours after we connected physically.

I listened to her talk for hours, and she listened to me talk deeply about my real, secret job. Sometimes we'd fuck for an hour, talk for 3, then fuck again before passing out practically moments after we both came. It was really, really good sex, and really good intimacy.

But we didn't date. She had taken on a second job to pay her bills faster, and I was traveling a lot more and writing constantly. So we'd meet up three, four times a month at her place or at my place, or on occasions she'd fly out to meet me for rip-roaring sex in an odd city in the States. It went on for almost 7 months. She never said she loved me (she did, though), but she came close. She definitely loved what I had to give her, and she took it whenever I wanted it, as I gave it when she did.

And then it happened: she met someone else. The guy she met was completely her type: college-bred, goofy but still cute, into sports and into the same movies and books and bands that she was into. They hit it off, and she asked me when she should sleep with him. I told her: when you're comfortable with the idea. Sometimes it's the first date, sometimes the third, sometimes it's months.

We still fucked while she dated him, and after 2 months she finally felt comfortable falling into his arms and into his bed. She called me crying the next morning.

"I love this guy." That's great! It's a challenge to find someone you're so compatible with. "We have great sex." Awesome! "I mean, I don't want to hurt your feelings." It's better than with me, so what?

She admitted that she came more with me than with him, but with him it felt better. She wasn't as vulgar or whorish in bed as with me, but more intimate on the inside. He didn't make her feel as much like a lady as I did, but she loved spending time with him.

So what's the problem? "I feel bad that this is happening." Because of me? "Yes." Don't. This is what people have to do to find someone they're really compatible with. I'm more than just a lay, but if he can listen, if he can make you smile and make you want sex and make you feel like a woman, then I'm inconsequential. "I'll miss you." I'm not going anywhere. I'm still here, for coffee, for talking, for responding to late-night freak-outs about how your rent will get paid.

She hated herself for weeks, telling me that she doesn't understand why she's so into him and why she was only into me for sex and talking. I told her: it's because I was meeting SOME of your needs greatly, but not all of them or even a majority of them. He met more of her needs, but none of them perfectly. It's something you have to accept when you fall in love, there is no perfection.

We talked, in person. She wanted me, one last time, but I said no. I told her that our sex was ridiculously good. She liked that I made her beg, that I took her in ways that seemed against her will but completely what she wanted, what she needed, what she secretly desired from me. I understood her boundaries: mental and physical, and never breached both at once.

Eventually, her relationship with him really took off, with him moving in with her a year after they started sleeping together. Her finances were in order, her love for him deepened. They spoke of marriage down the line, of moving together to another city to try for new goals and opportunities. I still listened to her. Over time, her desire for me lessened as her sexual experiences with him grew. Still, she said she missed the sensual machine that I can be with the right woman. I told her that she had passed from girl to woman, and I was there during the transition. She smiled, knowing I was right.

To this day, we still talk, not regularly but often enough. She'll call or she'll handwrite me a letter or type out a long email. They're still in love, they're married, trying for a first child now that both of them are settled in work, in finances, in goals. She still asks me about my sex life, and tells me about hers. I forwarded her recently to a blog written by an anonymous mom who is reinvigorating her sex life. She follows the RSS feed and loves the ideas and openness, but she's afraid to comment or continue the discussion on her own blog.

She asks me how I gave her up so easily, and I told her the truth: it was obvious that her needs were getting met by another man significantly, rather than the few needs that I met of hers and her meeting mine. She understands, I know, but she doesn't get it completely. She's been aghast at some of my relationships with involved women, but said she would secretly like the idea of a lover if her husband didn't provide her sexual stimulus and soulful compliments about herself. He does, so she has no need for a lover like me anymore.

She asked me if I would have had a problem had she taken on many lovers outside of us, and I told her surely not. I don't sleep with whores or sluts, but I fully expect my part-time lovers to have other lovers so that they can dip into many soups, tasting many flavors, seeing what they like or dislike. Having many lovers in succession doesn't make you a slut if what you're looking for is added compatibility.

Sex is a key element in one's life. I'm reading so many blogs where the man or woman has re-opened their sex life and it's making a HUGE difference on their overall happiness, stability and confidence.

Should I take on a regular lover in my life, long-distance or otherwise, I fully expect them to taste many foods, smell many flowers, try many jobs, read many books, suck many cocks, touch many bodies and try many things. It's all part of life.

I never really let her go, I just let her follow her path. She wasn't mine, no one is mine and I am no ones. When our paths meet for a time period, it's because we're on the same journey. It's not forever, usually. Some day, I hope it is. But your path may include others, too. Other friends, other co-workers, other lovers, other penpals. It's life. There's nothing wrong with it.

I left her with something she needed, but I didn't fulfill the need entirely. I'm glad she's still my friend, and I'm glad she was honest about her feelings. It didn't hurt, much. I didn't harbor jealousy or anger. It didn't upset my self-confidence or make me feel like less of a man. I was aware of the possibility from day one, and I will never fear the day that someone's path takes them from my arms into the arms of another. Life is short, and we must always work at building better relationships, stronger ones, filling more of our needs.

Resisting her kisses, etc.

Spending time with the firecracker Anonymous Female Chicago Blogger #2 yesterday opened up some recollection of a gal I dated many years ago. They didn't look like each other, but her attitude was a natural match for bringing up the old memory.

I pulled up my journal going all the way back (it took me about 2 hours to find it, I need to better tag and sort my old journals!) and copied and pasted it (with spelling errors intact).

~~~~~
Maria was a Spaniard from head to toe, inside and out. Born in Germany (a Navy brat) to parents of Spanish descent, she had a little bit of every accent. Her voice drove me nuts.

I met Maria through a chance phone call to my best friend at the time, Mark. Mark and I haven't talked in years, sadly, but he still replies to my hand written letters every summer. I called Mark trying to see if he wanted to go out, but Maria answered. I later learned Maria was staying with Mark and his parents because her parents were coming to Chicago (north suburbs) for their next assignment, but she finished up at college before they moved in. Mark's uncle is in the Navy, so he got her the fold-away bed at Mark's house to sleep on for a few weeks.

We chatted that day, and I was intrigued with her accent. Her voice was melodious without being screechy or too high pitched. Taught in proper English, her cadences and clicks to certain consonants really had me motivated to find out more. She said that Mark was out of town with his girlfriend, but would pass on the message. A few days later, I called back to see if he'd returned (he hadn't), and she kept me on the phone for over 2 hours.

I'm not a big phone person. I hate the phone because it ruins the conversations you should have in person. You also can't read body language, see if someone is bored, etc. Our talk was mostly fun banter, me trying to impress her with my less-than-appropriate knowledge of Spanish, German, Portuguese and French. She was fluent in all, and I only knew how to take a woman to bed and order coffee for us in the morning.

On Saturday, Maria called me (thank you, Caller*ID) and asked if I wanted to get together for some coffee. I told her I would love to get coffee with her (which I said in Portguese and it came out as "I would love to spill coffee on you.") Eu amaria derramar o café em você.

She laughed, and said I can only spill coffee if I was willing to replace the dress she was wearing. A dress! How perfect. I made plans to pick her up from Mark's parents' house later in the afternoon. The weather was perfect at 75 degrees, I was dressed in my Saturday best (white pants and shirt, light brown slip-ons), my car was clean, my hair was freshly razor-cut, and I was feeling pretty good about life.

I arrived, on-time, at 2pm. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. The woman who answered the door was a lot more mature looking than the 21 year old I had expected. Maria was gorgeous. Her face wasn't perfect, her teeth far from straight, but her smile and her eyes lit me up inside. I mumbled my hello, not being as confident then as I am today. She giggled at my stammer and said I should just say it in English. Sadly, I DID say it in English.

We drove to my favorite cafe, one that looks terrible on the outside (and on the inside). They had the best espresso machine in the country and were an outfit front for an organized crime syndicate. Let's say that the number of locals who ventured in was ZERO, other than Maria and I. Maria said the place looked like shit (her words), and I told her it WAS shit, but the coffee was fantastic.

To explain this cafe is to wander into fantasy-land: the inside was old white tile that hadn't been white in decades. The back wall was covered top to bottom with Italian porn VHS tapes to rent. The counter, if you'd call it that, had not a single uncracked piece of glass on it, showcasing antique electronics that no one would ever buy.

The man behind the counter was 6'3", probably 350#, with hands bigger than my head. I ordered an espresso and a cappuccino, he nodded, and went to make them. Maria looked for a clean chair, but none were to be found. I ran to my car, got my summer linen suit top, and placed it on her chair for her to sit. She didn't want to touch the table, even.

"This is how you impress a young woman?" No, this is where I come for the best coffee in the world. The beans were grinding behind me and she looked past my head. "That man is a coffee guy?" No, but he makes a mean cup. Trust me. "I'm not sure anyone can trust you." You will.

Big Italian came around with our coffees. Maria looked at her cup (chipped, on a chipped plate) and waited for me to sip my espresso. I opened my chocolate piece next to the espresso, dipped it in the coffee and took a bite. "See? Even you won't drink it," she said. I smiled and took a sip. My eyes obviously displayed an orgasmic roll inside my head. She nervously grabbed the cup (with her sleeve over her hand) and took a sip.

"Oh my god. This is amazing!" I told you. "No, really, this is the best coffee I've ever had." Smell it more. "It smells of flowers almost!" That's fresh roasted coffee, roasted in the back of the place. She looked to the door leading to the back room, practically falling off its hinges. "I wouldn't go back there. How does HE get through that little opening?" she said, thumbing back to point at Big Italian. I have no clue, I've never seen anyone actually go through it.

Big Italian was reading some gambling receipts and totalling them up. There was probably $20,000 in cash sitting on the counter top by the time we were leaving. "Don't you have to pay?" I don't think so. Never have. "Do you know these people?" No. I just like their coffee. "Isn't it dangerous to come here?" As far as I know, they probably think I'm either in their organization, or related to someone. No one's ever asked me before. I've never really seen anyone in here other than a few guys in $10,000 suits. "This is crazy." Welcome to my world.

We drove around for a few hours as she had never been in Chicago before. I took her to The Alley (she wanted a City of Chicago patch like I had on a jacket hanging in my car). I took her to Boystown and Andersonville. We stopped off at a restaurant, now gone, and had a glass of wine each. She told me about her life so far. Nothing too exciting, but nothing detrimental.

We walked a bunch, laughed a bunch. She hooked her arm into my arm and we sloppily stopped at a few bars, drank a locally crafted beer, told each other stupid stories and just had fun. She was a fun girl. She asked me if I had a girlfriend, to which I replied no. It was truthful. I was sort of sleeping with a girl who I went to high school with, but it wasn't serious and she was moving in a few months anyway.

We went on a few dates like this over the next few weeks. I kept phone calls to a minimum, faking busyness. On our 4th date, Maria was the first woman in my life to call me handsome. I blushed, as I still do, when she said it. "You don't think so?" Not really. Cute, maybe. Handsome? Ridiculous. "I think you are." She stepped up to me and put her arms around my waist and kissed me. The first kiss was electric, both of us being of the right height to just linger on it. Her lips and mine were both done with the kiss, but she lingered so long on my mouth. Bad day to be wearing linen pants.

"That's not very gentlemanly" she said, looking down at my predicament. I smiled, letting her know that a lingering kiss is too passionate for this city boy. She smiled back and said "I guess I haven't been very lady-like myself for the past hour." It took me a moment to understand what she meant. I blushed again, and she smiled at me. "You're not shy, stop that." It's true, but I do get shy once in awhile.

She grabbed my hand and we walked back to the car, talking about nothing exciting. She was hoping to get into grad school in a year and a quarter, working in Chicago to save enough money to live on for the few years it would take to get her degree. She was going to move to Boston for it, another town she had never visited.

Our affair lasted most of the summer, when she found a job in Boston. Sex was always passionate, kisses moreso. With her, I learned the art of resisting a woman. She would move to kiss me and I would pull back just enough to say no. It made her hungry for my lips. I learned how to tease a woman's body by not attacking the parts that porno actors do. It made her hungrier for my touch. After the condom was on, I would resist penetration, which made her hungrier for me inside of her.

I resisted with her, and she gave in to me, letting me take the reins only after she proved what she wanted. She wasn't submissive, she wasn't dominant. We swapped those roles playfully, teasingly, and constantly. She would get on top of me and try to tease me, but I used my hands and arms to pull her back down. She was a firecracker in bed, in life. We rode horses competitively, we played soccer that would turn into wrestling matches, scoring our outfits with grass stains and dirt.

Sexually, she hadn't much experience. She'd been with one boy in high school, two in college. Sex wasn't her thing because her drive for education was so high. Our summer together showed her the sexual creature that she was. There was nothing she wouldn't try with me, and nothing she didn't like. We completed each other at a time when we needed exactly what we had been given: passion, some romance, tons of teasing, and her breaking through every resistance I walled between us.

At summer's end, the company she was interning for offered her a paying position in Boston, a year ahead of when she was to leave. There was no breakup. We saw each other at least once a year for a few years, until she landed a serious boyfriend. I still write her letters a few times a year, and she writes back. We are penpals, but both of us also have fine and fond memories: I learned to resist, she learned to break through.

I still use the art of resisting when I woo a woman who has shown interest in me. It's not a game I play, it isn't a tactic. It is an art that women almost need to be presented with. When they yearn for your hands on their body, your lips on their lips, or even you inside of them or on them, their desire for you magnifies. Their bodies, their minds and their hearts respond, bringing the union to a more expressive climax in any situation, sexually or otherwise.

Summer days on a horse, or kicking a soccer ball with the neighbor's kids, or having a stain cleaned from my linen suits always reminds me of Maria. She was a woman at her young age, and I feel I completed myself into manhood through my relatioship with her. She was my firecracker, and I was her flame. May the explosive bang never stop echoing in my mind.

My Bizarre Fantasy Journal #3

Since I'm a writer (I get paid for it even), I keep a variety of crazy journals that focus on ideas I have.  Sometimes it's business ideas or inventions, sometimes I cover places I want to go and things I want to see, sometimes its sex, most of the time it's just random spewed thoughts.  Rarely is it fully coherent or possible.

Here's one I wrote in 2007 that never panned out.  I figure I'd share it with others, not in hopes of fulfilling it, but mostly in hopes that someone will come back to it again when they need a little entertaining fantasy of their own to write about, publicly or privately.

Fantasy #3: Not Anonymous, but still Unknown

It's always been my desire to hook up with another writer in a semi-anonymous fashion.  When I say "hook up" I don't necessarily mean sexually.  Maybe we'll meet for business reasons, or it could even be a bar pal.  Maybe it'll be a lover, who knows?

The idea of the fantasy is to create a new blog before the first real getogether.  Would we meet online somehow, or maybe one of us got the other's email address and we started talking virtually that way.  Either way, said new friend is not someone I've spent any significant amount of facetime with.

This new blog would be a publicly displayed private journal that we each keep, but not to interact with.  She'll post, I'll post, but we won't interact.  In email we'll plan our future first getogether: we'll pick our new names (I envision her being Chanel and me being Narcissco, but the names don't matter), we'll pick where we'll meet (a bar neither of us has been to maybe 45 minutes from our usual spots), we'll pick the day and time (Thursday, 8pm).

I'll write on the new blog about what I'll wear, how I'll trim my beard, but not about what I hope for.  Basic stuff.  She'll write her own article about the same.  We won't read the other's post, but any followers who are interested will.  Maybe we'll share the common blog on our own blogs ahead of time to get others to jump on as followers and commenters.

We'll meet.  Whatever the purpose (business, friendship, love, screwing), we'll each return to our own homes and update the blog with our opinions of the evening.  Maybe it'll be a very short relationship, a one-time date or hangout session.  We'll comment on what we saw and actually thought: I might talk about her bad makeup or her amazing legs, she might talk about what she honestly thought of me.  We won't know each other's real names or addresses, maybe not even our phone numbers.

If there is to be a future meeting, we'll communicate with each other via the blog journal.  "Post #4: How about Tuesday the 15th?"  "Post #5: Perfect!  Let's check out Young's Grille in Evanston."

If there's a sexual hookup, the details would be amazing, considering we don't know what the other person's real life is like.  If there's no sex but it turns into a joint venture of another kind, those details would also be amazing.

Maybe it's destined to failure, or maybe it's an on and off friendship or relationship with updates in-between times we meet, personal updates regarding the specificity of the relationship, any fantasy or hopes for it.  Minds and emotions displayed to the public, to the other person, but maybe never commented on in real life between the two.

It could be fun, or it could be horrible.  Either way, it's an idea there is still time for.  Maybe this year.

A reply to an email from dbaggrrl

dbaggrrl emails me this morning:

"Doesn't sound like you're lonely, just bored and maybe in need of some lovin.  How about finding a fuck buddy?"

Hmm, the thought's been there, but it's not really that interesting to me.  The whole fuck buddy thing rarely works for me, mostly because the few girls I had who were just about booty ended up either being real sleazebag whores, or ended up falling for me WAY hard and I ended up hurting them.

That leaves me in a quandry: I'm definitely more on the prowl than not, although not too active about it.  As I've said before, I don't seek out sex or love, just companionship and relationships.  Those could be business-minded, or just friends, or geeky co-adventurers, or lovers, or whatever the case may be.  I tend to only keep a few friends active at once, and just don't have the time or energy to pursue a real relationship at this point in my life.  A few years ago I'd probably have settled down with the right gal, but the gal I had was the wrong gal in so many ways.

Theoretically, I have a fuck buddy but it's not someone I've utilized for that in many years.  She was my best friend in high school, I was her first lover in her college years, and off-and-on we'd hook up if the time was right and we were both in the same town.  As we've gotten older, we've both decided mostly to give up those completely-random-booty-calls at 1am on a Wednesday night.  The last time must have been 3 years ago, and we ended up talking more in between the 40 minutes or so of banging that occurred between all our conversations.  I'm no sap, but sometimes having a beautiful lady rolled up against your body and limbs is pretty awesome.

I was propositioned the idea in summer last year by a friend-of-a-friend who I was crazy attracted to on many levels.  I nixed it BECAUSE of that crazy attraction.  There's no way I wouldn't build up some kind of minor jealousy, so I told her the plain truth: we can't date, we shouldn't fuck, and there's not much else to do.  So we run into each other on rare occasions socially, have a few laughs and then part ways to the rest of our evenings.  It's smooth, but I do regret not at least taking her up on a one-night-stand.  If anything, her body and face have gotten better with age, not worse.

I also like discreteness if at all possible.  I'm no player, I don't sleep around, but I like my love life to be as private as possible, unless I'm in a serious relationship.  When I did the sugar-daddy/sponsor thing, I made it clear that our relationship was to be as private as possible.  I don't want to meet your friends or lovers, and you aren't going to meet mine.  That's the fun part of that relationship: we both get outside of our worlds, and do new and interesting things.  The downside is that finding an amazing girl to sponsor is very difficult in this day and age I've seen.  Plus, I don't believe that sponsorship goes with sex, so that wouldn't cure any physical needs.

Since coming back to Chicago, I've had my share of possibilities.  Liz wanted to sleep with me, only because she had a great time and sex with her boyfriend is boring and humdrum.  The girl she secretly hooked me up with would have been sex, but we didn't fit, so that was a miss.  Kari and I still talk, but she's already working on taking her new relationship to a better level, which means sex is out of the question there.  I keep wanting to talk to my new neighbor (we both do laundry often at the same time), but that's too close for comfort, and I've now seen her TWICE at the local Target.  Yeesh.

Maybe I should start hanging out in the burbs or Milwaukee or somewhere a little further away.  A new world, I won't run into ten billion people I know or who know me or of me, and there can be some sense of secrecy with intimacy that only gets better from the short distance.  I do have to say that my few VERY long distance relationships in my life have been the best fun AND the best sex I've had.  Plus there's almost no chance of either of us trying to make it TOO serious.

If it boils down to this versus that, I'd probably prefer a phone sex buddy than a fuck buddy.  Consider this: We're both going to jerk off anyway, but having someone to mutually tease and turn on makes that part of our lives a million times better.  Highly recommended.

So that's my take.  A fuck buddy could be fun, but I don't want to deal with the ramifications of what may happen should one of us get more serious about it than the other.  I'd take on a sugar-lady if the right one came into my life, but I won't seek it out.  I'm definitely not going to pick up some sleazester in a bar, and most of the women I ask out in my daily life seem to desperately want a serious relationship.  Maybe it's this recession that people are talking about, causing couples to appear when they probably shouldn't.

So to Miss dbaggrrl, I appreciate the opinion, but it's not for me at the moment.  On the other hand, if I meet someone I find attractive (sexually) but not so attractive socially, who really knows?  At least I've found some decent porn sites in the interim.

A decent ascent into spring

E-mail update: I nuked a few contacts accidentally at Google Mail, so if you email me irregularly, please send me an email so I can add you again. chicagosane@gmail.com Note that I generally delete emails after replying, so I don't even have that form to look you up. Oops.

Last night was a great spring evening. I was planning on staying in and putting away the dry cleaning from Monday, but an old friend sent me an email when her RSS blog reader told her I'm writing again here. Always means I'm in Chicago.

Jules, 31, was a great friend from high school. Her boyfriend, Stephen, is a decent enough guy. They both live in Portage Park, not 10 minutes from me. Jules said they were going to stay in, and invited me over for drinks and dinner.

I brought some fresh cilantro, garlic, oil, prosciutto and cheese. Figured between the 3 of us, we'd have just enough to whip up something tasty. I also brought my favorite Merlot, which we didn't open. None of us were in the drinking mood.

Jules is a "good girl," saving her virginity until after college. Her and I were just pals, only once fooling around after we both went through breakups on the same day. That was 12 years ago. It never repeated, but at the time it was perfect. No sex, just passion to the limit. Stephen doesn't know. She still grabs my ass on occassion, shooting me a dirty/cute smile. Mischievious girl.

We all chatted about summer plans: they're going to Japan in July. Since I'll be in Hong Kong for work around the same time, we agreed to meet for a night out. I love Asia with friends.

Jules and Stephen have a roommate, Belinda, who is quite cute. I'm fairly certain she has the hots for Jules, who denies it. I've told her to invite her into the bedroom for Stephen's birthday gift. Jules' conservative side shuns the idea, but I know she likes it, too.

So we drank tea, ate a mish-mash of fridged goods in an oily pan, and laughed about some recent stories of my 4 months away. Stephen doesn't know about this site, but he does know I love amazing women.

"So how many have you bedded in 09?" he asked me. I told him: none. He was surprised, thinking of me as some player. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jules was not surprised, knowing I went 3 years without a lover when business and travel and writing assignments took up my energy.

That will end soon, I hope. I'm not lonely in any way, but I'd love to attract a beautiful and busy young lady to invite into my bedroom for a long run. Kari and I ended our tryst over mutual desire to move on. Now that I'm 100% free, I'm keeping my eyes open again.

I never look for love or sex, it just comes in my path. Desperation is a sure way to llose your chance with an amazing woman.

Until she comes along, I'm going to revisit my beloved Chicago. This week I'm going to wander Portage Park during the day and at night. Who wants to join me?